


The Water Park

by jecooksubether



Series: Tigereans and Weres [7]
Category: Furry (Fandom), Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, Gen, Original Fiction, POV First Person, Shapeshifting, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26364724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jecooksubether/pseuds/jecooksubether
Summary: Wherein the Author and crew try a local water park.
Series: Tigereans and Weres [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1914835





	The Water Park

**June 22nd**

It was two weeks later that the company’s swim water park party was scheduled. We ended up taking the big suburban, as the Liberty’s drive train was presently sitting in pieces all over the rented shop the tigereans had obtained. I’m not quite sure _how_ they managed to acquire the CNC machine that they did, but I had a fun three days learning how to effectively use it. I had invited Sh’Meral, Ch’Mrr, and T’Grlf; the latter respectfully declined, and he pulled me aside and explained why.

“It is none of your fault, apprentice. My irrational fears are not your problem. You should take this time with Sh’Meral and Ch’Mrr to get to know the both of them better.”

I looked at him when he told me this, and went to say something, but he cut me off. “I know what you are about to say. Treat Ch’Mrr as Sh’Meral’s brother, even though he is not her brother biologically. He is bonded to serve the Ambassador as a guardian.”

I pondered this for a moment. “I do not know what that entails. I will ask him when I get some time to speak with him. Thank you for the advice, master.” As I turned to leave the shop that afternoon, he ‘pathed back to me {Don’t thank me yet- I’ll have something for you to do when you come back!}

We had purposefully arrived about a half hour after the doors opened, so as not to cause a scene. Sh’Meral and Ch’Mrr both had gotten dressed for their respective roles prior to picking me up at my house. Although Sh’Meral said that she planned on swimming, Ch’Mrr declined and said that he would make sure our possessions remained safe. I made the mistake of trying to argue the point with him. “Ch’Mrr, no one will touch our stuff. It’s all employees of my workplace. They are probably the most trustworthy people on the planet. This is the third year I’ve done this. The previous two years I didn’t have any problems.”

He looked at me gravely, and opened the button down shirt he was wearing, which revealed a small arsenal of what looked like stunners or something, and a handful of sheathed knives. “I think you understand now why I cannot go into the water. I am not allowed to while I am protecting her. This is part of my diplomatic immunity- If I am ‘off duty’, I am not able to carry these devices to protect her, and even though we may be in good company, there are things that can happen that no one can control. While I cannot anticipate everything, I must try to do the very best I can to protect her, even during this charade.”

I nodded blankly at this. “I... think I understand partly the onus you have. When time permits, can you perhaps enlighten me more to your duties?”

He shook his head. “Not without her permission. I am sorry.”

I nodded and the two of us piled out of the truck- Ch’Mrr performed a visual sweep of the area while I opened the door to Sh’Meral’s side and helped her out. Ch’Mrr locked the doors, I pulled the tickets out of my bag, and the three of us walked directly up to the entrance. The ticket-taker looked at me, then at the the amused tigress behind me, and then at the wall of shirt and fur that was Ch’Mrr. I handed her the three tickets and said “Is there a problem, ma’am?” She finally found her voice.

“No problem, I think. I seem to recall seeing the big one on TV before.”

Ch’Mrr gave a short bow. “I am Ch’Mrr of the Srrn’th Clan. I am chief of Security for the Tigerean Empire’s trade delegation. This lady in front of me is Sh’Meral, the Ambassador’s... “He looked at me and muttered “secretary?” in _trrth_.

I spoke up. “Personal assistant. These two are my guests. If there is a problem with them being here...”

One of the park supervisors and one of the HR staff from work had come over on seeing (and hearing) the exchange. “No, no problems here. Please, enjoy yourselves.”

The HR person was not quite convinced. “Jeremy, how did you manage to talk to these two? He is a very important person!”

I mused over possible responses for a minute, and settled on the usual party line. “I volunteered for an apprenticeship with their uplift staff after that meeting a couple months ago. It’s a long story, but the big guy here” I pointed my thumb at Ch’Mrr “is operating under direct orders from the Ambassador to ensure her assistant’s safety.” My thumb moved to point at Sh’Meral. “The Ambassador is curious about some of the places we use for recreation, and as there tends to be crowds of reporters and other nonsense, it was thought that this would be the best way to gather information.” I ‘pathed to both of them [ _That_ _’s the carrot- lets see if they nibble._ ]

The HR staffer relaxed at this point. “Oh, ok. I seem to recall us offering the Ambassador something similar when we showed the resort and the casinos, but we had been turned down.”

Ch’Mrr put his giant paw out. “My apologies for not giving reason. We did not want to show favoritism or appear to accept offers. We paid our own way here, as example. Jeremy here wanted to assist in manner that would protect us from reporters and formal ceremonies, and we agreed in that respect.” He ‘pathed. {And that’s the short stick for the carrot. I think they are going for it.}

The HR staffer shrugged. “OK. Enjoy yourselves.”

Waving us on, we managed to find a table in an out of the way place. Sh’Meral spoke to us in _trrth_. “What is there to eat here? I smell meat being burned somewhere.”

I chuckled. “Humans cook their meat in order to avoid getting sick. Remember the hamburgers I cooked the other week? They have those, and a type of sausage called a hot dog. There is no dog meat in them however- it is usually chicken, beef, or pork that is used. There are also potato chips, cookies, and two types of salads.”

The three of us queued in one of the food lines, and I had the (bad) luck of getting a familiar face in front of me. Ch’Mrr was at the tail (fnarr!) end of our trio, with Sh’Meral in the middle. As luck would also have it, the coordinator for our department and his two siblings ended up behind him. They were peppering Ch’Mrr with questions, I was in the middle of telling B. that I was not on duty and therefore was not going to help him, when he made the mistake of asking Sh’Meral where her cleavage was. [ _Oh No He Didn_ _’t- don’t maul him too badly_ ] I desperately ‘pathed to both of them. Sh’Meral started speaking rapidly in _trrth_ , Ch’Mrr pasted this highly amused look on his face, and I just stood there and listened until she was done. I conversed with her briefly in _trrth_ , and at the end she merely nodded. {Just like that, please.} she pathed to me. I shrugged and turned to face him, fully aware that a handful of people were now staring at the 7 of us, including his direct report.

“Before I begin, Please know that these are not my words, but hers, and should be taken in that context and spirit. She said ‘If you had read the web site we created for your people, you would know that we do not normally have enlarged mammary glands except when pregnant. While I should take offense and insult at your comment, I have been instructed by the ambassador directly that I should not, as an interstellar incident would be most unfortunate to both our peoples. My translator has informed me that your direct supervisor has been conversing with our head of security behind me, and that he probably heard your comment. While humans may not consider a ‘flat chest’ to be attractive, Tigereans do not take the size of cleavage or genitalia into account when sizing up a potential mate for attractiveness.”

Sh’Meral grabbed my elbow and muttered something in _trrth_ to me. I replied back in English, “We have no word in our language for that profanity, nor do I know of an acceptable substitute in my considerable knowledge of profane words and insulting phrases. I could try relating the concept instead?” She nodded. I turned back to face B. “While we humans do not consider honor to be the end-all and be-all, Tigereans rank it very highly, and you have just demonstrated a total lack of honor and tact to her.”

His face turned beet red, the line moved forward while we hopped out of line to a different one, with his direct report following after a brief pause to talk to him. We got into another line. As he caught up to us, he said “what on earth just happened over there?”

It took a few minutes to explain fully between Sh’Meral putting in her two words via _trrth_ and my occasional reply back, but it was eventually hashed out, or so I hoped. I just hoped to every deity I knew of that it would not follow back on me. We got our food finally, and made our way back to the table we were at. We had more than a few people swing by, and by and large everyone was very friendly to us. We had a couple more co-workers I knew cruise by just to say hi.

After we had eaten (both Ch’Mrr and Sh’Meral tried everything they had but ended up eating just the burgers and cookies ultimately) we waited for a while, and then with Ch’Mrr guarding the duffel bag I had packed our shoes and towels in, we went to the wave pool and had a fun time swimming around for about an hour. The others in the wave pool where mildly concerned at first, but then Sh’Meral put on what looked like oven mitts on both paws and feet, and explained that they would provide protection against accidental claw deployment. A couple people asked what they were for, and people nodded when I explained.

At the end of the hour, there was a small group of us just riding the waves in when we noticed Ch’Mrr and two of the park staffers looking grimly in our direction. I said to Sh’Meral in _trrth_ , “Looks like the gig is up. At least you had some fun.”

She nodded at me as we came up to the trio. They explained that somehow the press found out that a pair of tigereans and a human had snuck in and they were trying to get pictures or interviews. While we were far enough into the park and obscured enough to not be visible, it was decided that we should leave before someone managed to sneak in proper. Ch’Mrr explained that he had a staffer bring the truck to a back entrance, and we were led out through the back entrance. We thanked them for the assist and the visit in general, and we made our way back to my place. We pulled into the driveway, I hopped out and opened the RV gate, and Ch’Mrr drove the big truck right through to the back yard. I closed the RV gate, shifted to hybrid, and kicked the distortion field on. As they got out, instead of going inside Sh’Meral decided to hop into my pool, and Ch’Mrr simply stripped down and climbed in as well. I pulled back into human form, unlocked the door on the RV gate and came back inside normally. I was glad that I did, because a news van rolled by about fifteen seconds after I shut the door.

We spent a couple hours in the pool discussing how things went, and I expressed my concern that my job would be in grave trouble over that incident. Sh’Meral dismissed it. “If you are fired, the Empire will hire you full time as an Uplift engineer and consultant. This would probably be a good time to make a break of things anyhow, seeing as your task list has returned to somewhat normal at work, while your task list under T’Grlf has increased dramatically. He is pleased with your progress, by the way, although you will never hear him say that- and you didn’t hear it from me, either.”

After I stopped chuckling, I asked her about Ch’Mrr’s role as a guardian. She told me that he would be the one to ask, and the two of them exchanged meaningful looks for a couple minutes. She nodded, and he explained what his role was, and his involvement in her personal life.

“... So you see, I can be best thought of in your terms as a brother in law if you are mated to her. I do know that I was going to ask T’Grlf for some of his time to begin teaching you some of my duties- not so I would get time to myself, but so that the two of you would get time to yourselves without me being along as some sort of chaperone. In addition, you would require training if you were mated to her anyway- she has had the same training.” The look on his face was deadly serious, and I nodded once.

“I understand. I think I would be happy to call you brother, even if not by blood.” As he looked at me, I reached out and gave him the biggest hug I could, which he returned. Sh’Meral then gave both of us hugs, and as we broke the hug, she pushed the two of us underwater. The rest of the evening was spent in our own private water park, and the three of us had an outstanding time. As we dried off that night, I spent a lot of time pondering the events of the day, and looking back, and I realized what I had to do to resolve the conflict I now saw fully formed in front of me.

I returned to work the next day. I looked at my project list, documented what I could, gathered my trinkets from my cubicle, and waited for the boss to arrive. Turning in my resignation was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done there, but as he explained it to me: “It’s better this way after what I heard happened at the picnic. While there’s no official action that will be taken against you, I have been told that you cannot do that again- it was a conflict of interest that you should have never risked.”

We talked for probably an hour, and he stated that he would be glad to write a glowing letter of recommendation to anyone I asked for. I nodded, and asked if he wanted me to leave now, or wait the official two weeks, knowing that if I stayed, the possibility of a complaint being filed against me would increase quite a bit. He asked me how long I had been planning to leave, and I told him a month. He handed me the remote access token and my badge back, and said that I would have two weeks of remote access to finish tying up loose ends, and that the only site I should come to for anything would be the back office site, and only if I could not solve it remotely. At that point, I thanked him, went to my now -spartan cubicle, and headed out.

The two weeks turned into a week, primarily because they found someone to replace me within a day or two, and I had managed to leave enough documentation to make the transition seamless. I enjoyed a day of vacation before arriving bright and early at the embassy’s shop the next day with my tools in one hand, and a sack lunch in the other. T’Grlf looked at me and said, “Well, welcome aboard. Now get to work, you slacker!”


End file.
